Two Truths to Live by
hopely
2017-06-29 16:02:39

The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of Old put it this way:" A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open.
Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God’s own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what it was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.
We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.
This not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, ill, be ours.
But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely this second truth dawns upon us. At every stage of life we sustain losses—and grow in the process.And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be.
The insight gleaned from that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: life’s gifts are precious--but we are too heedless of them.
Here then is the first pile of life's paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.
Hold fast to life... but not so fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.
Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God’s own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what it was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.
We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.
This not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, ill, be ours.
But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely this second truth dawns upon us. At every stage of life we sustain losses—and grow in the process.And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be.
The insight gleaned from that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: life’s gifts are precious--but we are too heedless of them.
Here then is the first pile of life's paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.
Hold fast to life... but not so fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.
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